words – sounds – images

From The Viking and The Moor

The Viking smirked at the impertinence of his mare’s flatulence. He swatted her bottom with his palm. “Helga, you smelly beast.” She kicked him in the shin. He winced, then laughed. “If you break my leg, how shall I mount you?”, he said. “You would be as sullen as I if we could no longer hunt.” But Helga had moved on to other business: munching idly on tufts of grass that poked through the snow. The Viking squatted next to his fire to warm his dry, cracked hands. They ached from a day of chopping firewood. He pulled a handful…

“I know that I hung on that windswept tree, Swung there for nine long nights, Wounded by my own blade, Bloodied for Odin, Myself an offering to myself: Bound to the tree That no man knows Whither the roots of it run.” -from “Odin’s Rune-Song”, The Poetic Edda Prologue Apocalypse came to the Northlands with The Man In The Red Cloak. He carried upon his back an elk-skin satchel. It was laden with two tightly wrapped bundles. He loped slowly across the earth’s frozen crust, hunched from the weight of his burden. His cloak dragged along the ground. It…